“You have to experience (the Jazz Sudbury Festival) to really understand what a gem it is,” according to Carmen Simmons.
Simmons, the executive director of Sudbury Community Foundation, the organization that hosts the Jazz Sudbury Festival, said they wanted to bring jazz music to Sudbury because there’s a “hunger” for it.
The second annual festival, which runs Sept. 10-12 at Science North, is the only one of its kind in northern Ontario.
“We’ve had some really good response to our early-bird ticket promotion,” Simmons said. “The interest is out there.”
She said people from Sudbury and other parts of the north have expressed a desire to check out the artists playing at the festival.
Along with the two main stages, Jazz Sudbury is also offering “jazz cruises” aboard the Cortina, an amateur jazz contest, workshop stages and shows at off-site venues.
Everybody says they know nothing about jazz, but it’s a music you hear all the time.
Carmen Simmons,
executive director
“We’ve expanded the festival to include two after-hours clubs, both Friday night and Saturday night,” Simmons said. “The Townehouse Tavern and Little Montreal are going to be having four of our out-of-town artists perform there after our stage has closed down at the festival.”
Previously announced headliners include Oliver Jones, Ranee Lee, Alex*Cuba, Brandi Disterheft and Manteca.
Kellylee Evans will close the festival with a free show at Laurentian University.
Jones, a “Jazz legend,” was a music professor at Laurentian University in the late 1980s, and was awarded an honorary degree in 1992.
“I used to go up two or three times a year, stay four or five days, working with the students,” Jones said. “It was a wonderful pleasure for me.”
Jones, who is performing in Sudbury on his birthday, said he is “looking forward” to returning to the city to play with “two of his best friends,” Ranee Lee and her husband Richard Ring.
“I know the audience will truly enjoy these tremendous performers,” he said.
Jones said the Jazz Sudbury Festival will “generate an awful lot of excitement in the area,” and sees it fitting for the north’s “biggest and leading city” to host it.
“I’m just sorry that I missed the first one,” Jones said.
The festival will include a variety of jazz musicians who play different styles of jazz music.
“Our goal this year was to showcase not only the best jazz musicians in the country, but also to bring artists that will appeal to a wide audience,” Paul Lefebvre, festival chair, stated in a press release earlier this summer.
Even if people aren’t familiar with the performers at the festival, they will likely recognize some of their music, Simmons said.
“Everybody says they know nothing about jazz, but it’s a music you hear all the time,” she said. “You don’t realize necessarily that it’s jazz that you’re listening to.
“It’s easy listening, it’s exciting, it’s upbeat, it’s fun.”
To purchase tickets to the festival and for a schedule, visit www.jazzsudbury.ca. “Jazz passes,” or tickets which can be used to all the shows, cost $75. Day and evening passes are also available. Ticket stubs can be used as passes on Greater Sudbury Transit buses to get to and from the festival.
For more information, phone 705-673-7770.
